Lucie Carter had known all her life that she was different to most of her friends.

While in her teenage years she dated boys, something always felt like it was missing.

Then - at the age of 16 - she fell for another girl and knew she had to come out as 'word travels pretty fast'.

But growing up as a regular church-goer in Biddulph Moor, Lucie wasn't quite sure how she'd find life as the 'only gay in the village'.

Now aged 23, the former Biddulph High School student has shared her heart-warming story of how she told her dad, friends and even the local vicar in a YouTube video published on JOE.

Speaking to the camera, Lucie says: "This is Biddulph Moor, a quaint village in the Staffordshire Moorlands, the source of the River Trent. The nearest railway station is approximately four miles away and the nearest city is another 10 miles away in the opposite direction.

"Living here are approximately 1,640 people, three churches, two pubs, one school and then there's me, the only gay in the village."

Lucie explains how her first relationship with a woman came when she was at college with the couple meeting in secret to kiss.

She says: "When I was 16 I had fallen head over heels for the only other gay that I knew of. She had a full-time job, I went to college. She spent her weekends baby-sitting and I spent mine swinging pies. Making time to secretly kiss was pretty much impossible.

"After seeing her for a whole three hours that month I was ready [to tell my dad].

"I was sat in the back of a car. I just said 'dad, I need to tell you something. He looked in the mirror and I think I could tell what he was thinking: 'She's pregnant and at least that means she's not gay'. Well dad, I'm gay."

Lucie Carter came out to her dad when she was 16

While Lucie's readily dad admits to having 'no idea' with the news leaving him 'shocked', he immediately accepted what he was told.

Lucie says: "I was terrified, absolutely terrified of telling him. You think people are going to think the worst of you and all these bad things you think about yourself, you think other people will feel that to.

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"Maybe as a parent you have a preconceived idea of how your kids are going to grow up.

"I think it's quite common that you tend to tell the people that you're perhaps less close with first and then work your way up. It's scarier when you are closer to people because you don't want to lose that relationship. In a lot of cases people do."

Lucie Carter - 'the only gay in the village'

Since coming out, Lucie has seen some of her friendships peter out.

She explains: "I can't work out if it's because of the fact I stopped going to church and stuff that I lost those relationships or whether it was a combination of me being gay and they didn't know how to take it.

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Reflecting on the day his daughter told him, Lucie's dad says: "It was outside the realms of what was normal, not that it was bad. It just seemed unusual.

"You always have a preconception of what you perceive to be normal, not that that it's not normal, but just a level of expectation of what your daughter or your son is going to do in the future. And I guess it was just kind of not that."

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